The Writing Prompt Boot Camp

Wednesday Poetry Prompts: 196

For this week’s poetry prompt, I want you to take one of the following lines and make it the first line of your poem. All these lines are taken from my personal notebooks, so they’re not especially wonderful–just some random places to start. Feel free to take liberties with these openings (the important part is the poeming).

She’s been thinking about things that don’t need thinking

I’m not sure who I am or what I want

The world, a helicopter seed spinning

Burn the want out of every moment

My bed is a planet

Trees hide the better views

Here’s my attempt:

“Dang-blasted”

She’s been thinking about things that don’t need thinking
about anymore. She’s been skating figure 8s
around the old lake. The ice is thin. She can’t think
forever. He never looked back is the problem,
she says. And she can’t turn her head the other way.

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164 thoughts on “Wednesday Poetry Prompts: 196”

Trees hide the better views
of valley to the side of the road
where greenery conceals
a narrow stream
of unknown name
moving toward unknown destiny.
Leaves turn color
splendor the valley.
Its late year’s resplendence
I see in radiant light of sun,
bright reflections of time,
a season’s pride
while I make my way home.

My bed is a planet
in light of dreams.
Mars is calling
in its fullness of red.
to go is a simple journey
once I’m in bed.
To get to Venus,
I go toward the sun,
a little recreation,
a little fun.
As for Pluto,
I do not go.
Once a planet,
and now not,
I do not go to this spot.

The world, a helicopter seed spinning,
Hurled into existence by a predestined beginning.
It circles the Sun, the supreme star of our system,
Who takes 7 other planets right along with ‘im.
How is it our neighboring spheres refuse to harbor life?
Do they somehow know the cost of human strife?
Or are they simply not chosen to be among blessed terrain,
To be looked upon with awe, its inhabitants’ gain?
Magnificent landscapes ~ how lucky we are,
To be 3rd from the Sun and not spinning afar!

Of the five lines, the first one “spoke” to most clearly, saying, “There’s a line for a country song if ever there was one…”

So, I hope I did it justice…

: )

SHE’S BEEN THINKING
G. Smith (BMI)
————————————-
She’s been thinking about things that don’t need thinking about,
Awake in the dark after the lights go out;
Those nagging little things that raise the shadows of doubt;
She’s been thinking about things that don’t need thinking about.

She’s been thinking on things that don’t need thinking on;
Like what’ll we do when the kids’re all gone?
They grow up so fast, it’ll be here before long;
She’s been thinking on things that don’t need thinking on.

I guess that’s a difference between she and me,
Something I miss is all she can see.
Was it something I said, beside her in bed?
Or forgot to say at the start of the day?
She knows I’ll be around when the chips are down,
And I know what to expect,
when
I
see
that
frown…

She’s been thinking through things that don’t need thinking through,
Like if she goes first, do I know what I’ll do?
Will I go on alone, or will I find someone new?
She’s been thinking through things that don’t need thinking through.

Thinking through things that don’t need thinking through;
She’s been thinking about things;
She’s been thinking.

Trees hide the better views
of the river;
a stand of old apple trees,
the fruit falling rotten in October
and the blossoms flying in April.
Every year we argue
whether it is better to cut them
down so that we can see the river
or let them stand
because we can’t bear to
cut them down,
and every year we decide
to wait.

Trees hide the better views
of what I want to see,
those sights that I would choose.
Trees hide the better views.
Must find new spot for muse,
Some quiet place to be.
Trees hide the better views
of what I want to see.

Busy, Busy, BUSY week, have not beeen able to read and comment, what few I have read are really great. Did some poeming whil waiting for shoppers, meetings and doctors. etc. – Only I ‘miss-remembered’ beginning line.

Sooooo – ‘My bed is a Planet’ morphed into ‘The planet is my bed.” 🙂
resuling in the following.

The planet is my bed,
the earth is my mother
where I lay my head.
The heavens are my Father
by whom I am led.
The sea is my brother
from which I am fed.
Earth’s breeze a cover
as surface paths I tread,
song birds o’r me hover.
The planet is my bed.

This site is so frustrating tonight. Can’t post rest of my comments. So, Jane, Letting Go is stunning, sad, and beautiful.
My Hearts, wonderful poem to ponder.
Bruce, Amazing use of this prompt(s)
Walt, It’s all good.
CL, Love `flying a moon kite.
Robert, never least, although last this time around. I love your poem, and your thoughts.

Burn the want out of every moment
Take action and do what you want while the moment is here
You can’t get it back once it’s gone
Don’t make room for regrets of what you didn’t do
and spend days wishing you could go back in time
To do over those things you wish you had done
Don’t let missed moments be missed opportunities
Burn the want out of every moment, do what you know you want to do.

I’m not sure who I am or what I want.
Sometimes it feels like I’m an actor
in a bad movie, eager for a new one.
Sometimes it feels like I’m directing
my own movie, but everyone has forgotten
their lines. Sometimes it feels like
the commercial break—time to turn down
the volume, get a snack and wait
for something interesting to happen.
But sometimes I feel like the spunky,
driven protagonist, giving it all I’ve got,
knowing the end will turn out well.

She’s been thinking about things that don’t need
thinking, much less “Whatever possessed you?”
out loud, in American, on a bus on this deserted,
snaking road between El Mago and La Casita.
Hurtling around blind curves, engine roaring –
the driver says the throttle’s stuck. Behind me,
“Whatever possessed you to take this bus?”
“So we could see the scenery.” “It’s dirty.
Chickens in the seats. You call this scenic?”
Across from me, a little girl with rooster
in her lap. The throttle roars, we hurtle. Then
we stop, and quiver to the edge of chip-seal
dropoff to gully. “We could die here!”
the woman’s voice. The girl sits gazing out
the window; her rooster crows, just once.
Out the window, sandy hills and dry arroyos
under blue, blue sky. Crosses in threes and
fives, a single, a score. Crosses made of dry
sticks, two bumpers lashed together, a tire-iron,
remnants of a load. Travelers who went no
farther on this road.

under his fingers,
a piano playing
for an hour
on the radio
and she is all motion
and letting go with the gravity
of his notes
telling her
she is beautiful,
desirable, attractive,
everything she ever wanted to be
just the way she is –
Sandra, some of us have been plugging that meter
all our lives for a second
of bliss here,
that special remembered year
with two minutes of bliss there,
this spinning free
neither tree
nor what you should be
and I still feel your fingers
from last night,
your poem, the world
a helicopter seed spinning
making it hard to see
where I am going,
where my feet are planted
in the ground.

For an hour I was a salamander
shimmying through the kelp in search of shore,
and under his fingers the notes slid loose
from my belly in a long jellyrope of eggs
that took root in the mud. And what…….

……..
For an hour I was a maple tree,
and under the summer of his fingers
the notes seeded and winged away

My bed is a planet
called Mysterious Wonder.
I lay my head down, hoping
it will conform to pillow’s
purposeful neck indent.
At times, marriage of head
and pillow is happy. Why
are there nights when
my head does not fit
that perfect place
on which to dream
of what is not real? Why
is my blanket sometimes
a cushion of comfort,
other times, a nest
of needles? Wonderment
and mystery exist,
spinning in space just above
the planet of my bed.

My bed is a planet, as we revolve through the night.
Alas the world is eternally right.
The stars up above is a map of our past.
A love once lost has returned long last.
A world ever changing, yet forever stays true.
We now have the time where old becomes new.
The man in the moon has a smile on his face.
The stars all align and have taken their place.
The love of my life, now asleep at my side.
A honeymoon of time; I’m finally his bride.
My bed is a planet; as we revolve through the night.
Alas the world is eternally right.

And the universe slowly revolves.
I, here, the missive waves of
Linen and silk
Tempt me to space.
I stare into the predawn starlight
And wonder if this is what the other planets feel
In the other houses
In the other blocks.
Do they rotate?
Do they collide?
Are mountains moving as they are now?
I yawn.
What does this make me?
Am I a sleeping giant under the
Starlit, gasping canopy
Whiling away the turnings
Of the celestial fires?
Or am I an ocean,
Vast and cold,
Fragile under the weight of a sky blue
And constantly turning over myself?
I sleep well, regardless.
You stir,
An earthquake,
Upsetting a delicate balance.
And your eyes,
Littering the ground as a forest does,
Sweep from equator to pole.
Our atmosphere is
Simply gone.
Speak to me, your mountain whisper
Cascading from the deepest depths
Of who knows where,
And tell me that this cold is just
A temporary reprieve
From an unjust and cruel
Firestorm.
My bed is a planet
And you are my gravity.
Find my throat
And wrap your fingers around it.
Make me breathless.
Make me long for weightlessness.
Acknowledge that now that we have started
There is no way to slow this down.
This bed.
This bed is moving.
And you and I
Form the mountains.

The world, a helicopter seed
Spinning its course
Around a sun marking time,
Turning night into day and
Flying a moon kite
Tethered by magnetic force,
Incubates humanity under
the Watchful Eye of the
universe.

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